Overview: Narayan's Mahabharata

Title: The Mahabharata: A Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic
Author: R. K. Narayan
Year: 1978

Comments: This is an excellent introduction to the Mahabharata, although of course it is very abbreviated. This R. K. Narayan is the same Narayan who wrote the Ramayana that you may have read earlier in the semester; R.K. Narayan was one of the most famous English-language authors of the 20th-century India; more about Narayan.

Length. The book is approximately 180 pages long, and very readable. I've divided the reading into four parts: Part A - Part B (one week of reading), Part C - Part D (another week of reading). There is a detailed reading guide for each part with notes, links, and images: Guide A - Guide B - Guide C - Guide D. Although the page numbers differ from edition to edition, you can use the flow of the plot to follow along with the Reading Guides.

Bizzell Reserve: Go to the Bizzell Reserve Desk to check out a Kindle with this book, and you can learn about the Bizzell Kindles here.

Bizzell Stacks: You can also check out a printed copy from the regular Bizzell stacks: PR 9499.3 .N3 M3 2013 (click to see if it is checked out or not).

Kindle: You can buy your own Kindle copy from Amazon for $9.99 (checked price November 2017); more about Kindles.

Paper Copies: The book will be available for purchase in the OU Bookstore.

There are lots of editions of this book with different book covers; it doesn't matter which edition you buy so long as it is R. K. Narayan's English-language version of the Mahabharata.